


The sectret life onf Lyn-z Ballato.

by daryldixonrecycleseveryarrow



Category: Mindless Self Indulgence, My Chemical Romance
Genre: F/M, Murder, Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 20:50:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1150660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daryldixonrecycleseveryarrow/pseuds/daryldixonrecycleseveryarrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1977, pregnant Genevieve Russell disappeared. Twenty years later, her remains are discovered and Timothy Gleason is charged with murder. But there is no sign of the unborn child.</p><p>Lindsey Way knows how Genevieve Russell died, because she was there. And she also knows what happened to the missing infant, because two decades ago she made the devastating choice to raise the baby as her own. Now Timothy Gleason is facing the death penalty, and she has another choice to make. Tell the truth, and destroy her family. Or let an innocent man die in order to protect a lifetime of lies…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It is going to be a hard fic to stay with, so if your read a lot of books/fan fiction stick reading it, but if you don't, just go!! x

The Secret Life Of Lyn-z Ballato. 

 

Chapter 1

She couldn’t concentrate on making love. No matter how tenderly or passionately or intimately Gerard touched her, her mind was miles away. It was a little after five on a Tuesday afternoon, the time they were protected from meetings or dinner with friends or anything else that might interfere with their getting together, and usually Lindsey relished the lovemaking with her fiancé. Today, though, she wanted to fast-forward to the pillow talk. She had so much to say.

Gerard rolled of her with a sigh, and saw him smile in the late afternoon light as he rested his hand on her stomach. Did that mean something? Smiling with his hand on her belly? She hoped so but didn’t dare ask him. Not yet. Gerard loved the afterglow-the slow untangling of their limbs and the gradual return to reality-so she would have to be patient. She stroked her fingers through the thick dark, nearly black hair as she waited for his breathing to calm down. Their baby was going to be beautiful, no doubt about it. 

“Mmm,” Gerard purred as he nuzzled her shoulder. Thin bands of light slipped into the room through the blinds, leaving luminous stripes on the sheet over his legs. “I love you Linz” 

“I love you, too.” She wrapped her arm around him, trying to alert enough to listen to her. “I did something amazing today,” she began. “Two something’s, actually.”

“What did you do?” he sounded interested, if not awake.

“First I took the 540 to work.”

His head darted up from his pillow. “You did.”

“Uh-huh.”

“How was it?”

“Excellent.” She’s had sweaty palms the whole time, but she managed. For the past few years, she taught fourth grade music in a school eight miles from their house, and she had never once had the courage to take the expressway to get there. She’d stuck to the tiny back roads, curling her way through residential neighbourhoods, dodging cars as they backed out there driveways. “It took me about ten minutes to get to work.” She said. “It usually takes me forty.”

“I’m proud of you,” he said. “I know how hard that must have been to do.”  
“And then I did another amazing thing,” she said.  
“I haven’t forgotten. Two things, you said. What other amazing thing did you do?”

“I went on the field trip to the museum with my class, instead of staying at school like I planned.”

“Now you’re scaring me, “he teased. “Are you on some new drug or something?”

“Am I remarkable or what?” she asked.

“You are defiantly the most remarkable women I know.” He leaned over to kiss her. “You are my brave, beautiful, black haired girl.”  
She’d walked inside the museum as though she did it every day of the week, and she bet no one knew her heart was pounding and her throat felt as though it was tightening around her windpipe. She guided her phobias carefully. She could never let any of her students’ parents – or worse, her fellow teachers- know.

“Maybe you’re trying to do too much too fast.” Gerard said. 

She shook her head. “I’m on a roll,” she said. “Tomorrow I plan to step into the elevator at the doctor’s office. Just step into it,” I’ll take the stairs. But stepping into it will be the first step. So to speak. Then maybe next week I’ll take it to the next floor.” She shudders at the thought of the elevator doors closing behind her, locking her in a cubicle not much bigger than a coffin.

“Pretty soon you won’t need me know more.”

“I’m always going to need you.” She wondered how serious he was with that statement. It was true that she needed Gerard in ways most people didn’t need a partner. He was the driver anytime they leaved a few miles from home. He was her rescuer when she’d had a panic attack in the supermarket, standing in the middle of an aisle with a full cart of groceries. He was the one holding onto her arm as he guided her through the mall or the concert hall or wherever they happened to be when her heart started pounding. “I would just like to not need you in that way. And I have to do this Gerard. I want that job.”

She’d been offered a position that would start the following September, training teachers in Wake Country to use a reading curriculum in which she’d become expert. That meant driving. A lot of driving. There would be six lane high-ways to travel and bridges to cross and elevators she would have no choice but to ride. September was nearly a year away, and she was determined to have her fears mastered by then. 

“Gee.” She pulled closer to him, nervous about the topic she was about to broach. “There’s something else we need to talk about.”

His muscles tightened ever so slowly beneath her arms.

“The pregnancy,” he said.

“She hated when he called it the pregnancy. She guessed she’s misread his smile earlier. “About the baby,” she said. “Right. 

He let out a sigh. “Linz, I’ve thought about it and I don’t think it’s the right time. Especially with you staring a new job next year. How much stress do you need? 

“It would work out,” she said. “The baby’s due in late May. I’d take the end of the year off and have summer to get used to being a mom and find a day care and everything.” She smoothed her hand over her stomach. Was it her imagination or was there already a slight slope to her belly? “We’ve been together so long.” She continued. “It just doesn’t make sense to have an abortion when I’m almost twenty-seven and you’re thirty-eight and we can afford to have a child.” She didn’t say what else they were thinking: Of course we would have to get married. Finally. They’d been engaged and living together for four years, and if her pregnancy forced her to set a date, that was fine with her. 

He gave her shoulders a squeeze, and then sat up. “Let’s talk about it later, okay?” he said.

“When?” she asked. “We can’t keep putting this off.”

“Later tonight,” he promised.

She followed his gaze to the phone on the night table. The message light was blinking. He picked up the receiver and punched in their voice mail code, then listened. “Three messages,” he said, hitting another button on the phone. The light in the room had grown dim, but she was still able to see him roll his eyes as he listened to the first message.  
“Your mother,” he said, “she says it’s urgent.”

“I’m sure.” Lindsey managed to laugh. Now that Amy had spilled the news of her pregnancy to their parents, she’d probably be getting urgent calls every day. Her mother had already emailed her saying that redheads were more prone to haemorrhaging after delivery. Thanks a heap, mom. She hadn’t bothered to reply. She hadn’t spoken to her mother more than a few times in the past three years. 

“There’s one form Amy, too.” Gerard said. “She says to call her the minute you get the message.”

That was more worrisome. An urgent message from her mother was easy to ignore. From her sister, less so. “I hope there’s not anything wrong,” she said, sitting up.

“They would have phoned you on your cell if it was so important,” he said, still holding the phone to his ear. 

“True.” She got out of bed and pulled on her short green robe, then picked up her phone from her dresser and turned it on. “Except, I didn’t have my phone on today because of the field trip, so-”

“What the-“Gerard frowned as he listened to another message. “What the hell are you talking about?” he shouted into the phone. Looking at his watch, he walked across the room to turn on the television. 

“What’s going on?” Lindsey watched him click through the channels until he reached WIGH, the Raleigh station for which he was a reporter. 

“That was a message from Raymond,” he said, as he punched another number into the phone. “He’s kicking me off the Gleason story.”

“What?” she was incredulous. “Why?”

“He said it was for obvious reasons, like I should know what the fuck he’s talking about.” He looked at his watch again and she knew he was waiting for the six o’clock news. “Come on, come on,” he said to the television or the phone-or maybe both. “Give me Raymond!” He yelled into the receiver. “Well where is he?” he started yelling and hung up and dialled the number again. 

“They can’t pull you off that story,” she said. “That would be so unfair after all the work you’ve done on it.” The Gleason story was his baby. He’d even attracted national attention to it. People were talking about him being a candidate for the Rosedale award. 

“Raymond said, ‘did you know about this?’ Like I’ve been keeping something from him.” Gerard ran his fingers through his hair. “Oh, don’t five me your damn voice mail.” He said into the phone. “Dammit.” She felt his impatience as he waited to leave a message. “What the hell do you mean, I’m off the Gleason story?” he shouted. “Call me!”

He tossed the receiver onto the bed, then pounded the top of the television with his fist a though he could make the news come on faster through force. “I don’t believe this,” he said. “When I left the court house today, the jury hadn’t sentenced him yet and they were meant to reconvene tomorrow. 

Maybe I heard it wrong. Maybe I missed the sentencing. Damn!”

Lindsey looked down at the cell phone in her hand as she cycled through the list of callers. “I have five messages, all from my parents’ house,” she said. Something was wrong. “I’d better call-”

“Shh,” Gerard said, turning up the volume as the brassy theme music introduced the news, and anchor man Paul Provost appeared on the screen.  
“Good evening, triangle,” Paul said referring to the Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill area. “Just hours before timothy Gleason was to be sentenced for the 1977 murder of Genevieve Russell and her unborn child, a shocking revelation shed doubt on his guilt.”

“What?” Gerard stared at the TV.

Footage of a small arts and crafts styled bungalow filled the screen. The roof looked wet from a recent rain, and the trees were lush, the leaves just starting to turn. 

“Is that…?” Lindsey pressed her hand to her mouth. She knew exactly how the air smelled in the small front yard of the house. It would be thick and sweet with the damp arrival of autumn. “Oh, my god.”

Through the front door, a middle aged woman limped into the porch. She looked small and tired. And she looked scared.

“What the fuck is going on.” Gerard said.

Lindsey stood next to him, clutching his arm, as her mother cleared her throat.

“Timothy Gleason is not guilty for killing Genevieve Russell,” she said. “And I can prove it.”


	2. Lyn-z

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lyn-z's life

Chapter 2

 

Dear Lyn-z,

You’re sixteen now, the age I was when I got pregnant with you. Whatever you do, don’t do that! Seriously, I hope you’re much smarter and more careful than I was. No regrets, though. My life would have been so empty without you. You’re my everything darling girl. Don’t ever forget that. 

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

1977

“Good morning, Tim.” Lyn-z poured his coffee into his cup. He liked it black and very strong, and then she added an extra scoop to the pot that morning that after other customers complaining. 

“The morning was pretty good to begin with,” he said, “But seeing you puts the icing on the cake.” He leaned back in the corner booth, where he always sat, and smiled at her. He had one of those smiles that changed her brain to mush. She’d met him on her fist day of work about a month ago, and she’d promptly spilt hot coffee on him. She had been mortified, but he’d laughed it off and tipped her more than the value of his breakfast. She fell for him right then. 

Al, she knew about him could fit inside a coffee cup. To begin with, he was beautiful. The sunlight poured into the corner booth in the mornings, settled in the curls of his blond hair, and turning his green eyes into stained glass. He dressed in jeans and t-shirt, like most Carolina students, but his clothing lacked any university of university of North Carolina logos even though he was a student there. He smoked Marlboros, and his table was always littered with books and papers. She liked that he was studios. Best of all, he made her feel pretty, smart and desirable, which was something she’d not experienced before. She wanted to bottle the feeling and carry it around with her. 

She pulled her order pad and pencil from her jeans pocket. “Do you want your usual?” she asked, but she was thinking, I, love you. 

“Of course.” He took a sip of coffee, and then pointed toward the front of the coffee shop. “Do you know every time I walk through that door, I’m afraid you won’t be here?” he asked. “As soon as I come in I look for your hair.” He’d told her that he loved her hair. She’d never cut it, and it fell in dark waves to the small of her back.

“I’m always here,” she said. “It’s like I live here.”

“You’re off on Saturdays, though,” he said. “You weren’t here last Saturday.”

“And you missed me?” was she flirting? That would be a first.

He nodded. “Yes, but I was happy to see that you had time off.”

“Well, not time off, really. I tutor on Saturdays.”  
“Your always working, Lyn-z,” he said. She loved when he used her name. 

“I need the money.” She looked down at her order pad as though she’d forgotten why she was holding it. “I’d better put out your order or you won’t get out of here in time for your class. Be back soon.” She excused herself and walked toward the swinging door to the kitchen.

Inside, the aroma of bacon and burned toast enveloped her, and she followed her fellow waitress and roommate, Kitty, arranging plates of pancakes on a tray. 

“You do have other tables to wait on, you know,” Kitty teased. 

Lyn-z clipped Tim’s order to the carousel where the cook would see it, then twirled around happily to face her friend. “I’m useless when he’s here,” she said.

Kitty hoisted her loaded tray to her shoulder. “He does look particularly hot today, I have to admit.” She backed up towards the swinging door t push it open. “You should say you had a date last night or something,” she said as he left the room.

Kitty was far more experienced in dating than Lyn-z, was full of bad advice when it came to Tim. “Pretend you have a boyfriend,” she’d say. Or “act indifferent sometimes.” Or Let me wait on him, see if he misses you.”

Not on your life, Lyn-z had thought in response to her last suggestion. Kitty was gorgeous. She looked like a model. When they walked down the street together, Lyn-z felt invincible. She was five-tree to kitty’s five-seven, and although she wasn’t heavy, she’d had a stockier build than her room mate. Except for her hair, her features were forgettable. 

She was smarter than kitty though. More ambitious, more responsible, and far, far neater. But when a girl looked like a model, guys didn’t care if she could solve a quadratic equation or diagram a compound sentence. Time would care, though. She didn’t know that for a fact, or course, but the Tim that she fantasises about would care.

She checked her other tables, getting extra napkins for a bunch of frat boys who’d made a mess with there cinnamon rolls. The fraternity types were a turnoff. They reeked of stale beer in the mornings, they never tipped, and they treated her like a slave. Then she got tea for the elderly couple seated next to Tim’s booth. The husband had very short-cropped hair and wore thick glasses. He had some sort of palsy; his hands and head shook uncontrollably. The woman, her own hands gnarled with arthritis, fed him with his breakfast with a patience Lyn-z admired. 

Setting the teapot in front of the woman, she glanced at Tim. His head was lowered over a book and he was taking notes as he read. Maybe she was kidding herself about his interests. Maybe he was just a friendly guy. They probably had zero in common, anyway. She was barely sixteen and he was twenty-two. She’d graduaut4ed from high school only four months ago, while he was in his first year of graduate school. And his major was social work, while her only contact with social workers has been as the recipient of their servicers. This was like having a crush on a rock star.

But when she finally delivered his plate of bacon, eggs and grits, he sat down his pen, folded his arms in front of him, and said, “I think its time we went out. What d’you think?” 

“Sure,” she said, as though his invitation was no big deal. Inside, she was bursting. 

She couldn’t wait to tell kitty. 

“Miss?” the old woman in the next booth waved her over.

“Excuse me,” Lyn-z said to Tim as she took a couple of steps to her left. “Are you ready for your check?” she pulled out her pad.

“I know we’re supposed to pay at the register, miss-” the woman looked at her name tag   
“-Miss Lyn-z. But I was hoping we could pay you. It’s so much easier on us that way.”

“Oh, sure.” Lyn-z added the figures in her head, jotting down the total. “Its five seventy-five,” she said.

The woman dug through her patent leather purse with twisted fingers. A gold wedding band, worn smooth, graced the ring finger of her left hand, locked in place forever by a knobby, swollen knuckle. 

“Sorry, miss,” she said, as she handed Lyn-z a ten dollar bill. “Everything takes me so long these days.”

“That’s okay,” Lyn-z said. “I’ll bring back your change.”

The couple was standing next to their table by the time she returned. The women thanked her, then slowly guide her husband down the aisle towards the door.

She watched them for moment, the looked at Tim. He was cradled by the corner of the booth, coffee cup in his hand and his eyes on her. She started clearing the couples table, stacking the plates on top of each other. 

“So where were we?” she asked him.

“How about a movie?”

“Sure,” she said, but her eyes were drawn to the seat where the old woman had been sitting. Tow crumpled ten dollar bills rested on the blue vinyl. 

“Oh!” she grabbed the money, then looked out the window to try find the couple, but the sea of students on the sidewalk blocked her view. “I’ll be right back,” she said. She ran out the coffee shop and, after searching for a few minutes, found the couple sitting on the bench at the bus stop. 

She sat next to the woman. “You dropped this in your booth,” she said, pressing the money into there hand.

“Oh, mo word,” the woman drew in her breath. “Bless you, child.” She took the bills, then caught Lyn-z’s hand. “You don’t move, Miss Lyn-z,” she said, reaching for her purse. “Let me give you something for your honesty.”

“Oh, no,” Lyn-z said. “Don’t worry about it.”

The woman hesitated, then reached out and tugged lightly on her long hair. “God surely knew what he was doing when he gave you hair fit for an angel,” she said.

Lyn-z was breathless by the time she returned to the coffee shop and began loading the couple’s dishes.

“What was all that about?” Tim asked.  
“Two tens must have fallen out of her purse when she was getting money to pay for me.” Lyn-z said.

Time tapped his pen against his chin. “So let me get this straight,” he said. “You need money and twenty dollars just landed in your lap and you gave it back?”

“How could I possibly keep it? Who knows how much they really need it? Maybe a lot more than I do.” She eyed him with suspicion. “Would you have kept it?”

Tim grinned at her. “You’d be a great social worker,” he said. “You care about the underdog.” This wasn’t the first time he had suggested she’d make a great social worker, even though he knew she wanted to be a teacher. The world would be a better place if everyone would become a social worker, he’d once said.

He looked at the clock above the kitchen door. “Gotta get to class.” He slid across the seat. “How about we meet at the varsity theatre at six-thirty?”

“Okay.” She tried to sound casual. “Later.”

He pilled his books and papers into a sloppy stack, picked them up and headed to the door. She looked down at his table. For the first time, he’d forgotten to leave her s tip. It wasn’t until she’d lifted his empty plate that she discovered he’d left her one after all: two ten dollar bills.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you, next chapter will be uploaded very shortly xx


End file.
